Doc. 11302 Report Airport throughout 2003 and 2004.148A source in Polish military intelligence said: “anyone who has contact with the Americans is our man. The Director [Kos] is our man”. Another senior Polish official familiar with the arrangements explained to us: “Polish military intelligence operatives were appointed to these positions. We said to place them anywhere with importance to the way this programme is run. This is how you come to know Mr Kos as the Director at Szymany Airport.” 173. Mr Jerzy Kos went on to become a director of the Polish private construction company, Jedynka Wroclawska SA, and was taken hostage in Iraq in June 2004 whilst pursuing company projects there. When Mr Kos was brought to safety shortly afterwards in a rare raid by United States Special Forces,149media outlets reported that the rescue operation attested to Mr Kos’ links to the intelligence services.150Indeed, my inquiry has been informed that Mr Kos’ “connections with [the] Polish secret service” in his business affairs have been “confirmed quite unambiguously”151during judicial proceedings152relating to the subsequent bankruptcy of Jedynka Wroclawska. As a military intelligence operative facilitating the uniquely sensitive covert actions of the CIA in Poland, Mr Kos was one link in a chain of operations that led right to the top of Polish Government. 4.2. Responsible political authorities in Poland 174. During several months of investigations, our team has held discussions with various Polish sources, including civilian and military intelligence operatives, representatives of state or municipal authorities, and high-ranking officials who hold first-hand knowledge of the operations of the HVD programme in Poland. Based upon these discussions, which have come to the same conclusions, my inquiry allows me to state that some individual high office-holders knew about and authorised Poland’s role in the CIA’s operation of secret detention facilities for high-value detainees on Polish territory, from 2002 to 2005. The following persons could therefore be held accountable for these activities: the President of the Republic of Poland, Aleksander Kwasniewski, the Chief of the National Security Bureau (also Secretary of National Security Committee), Marek Siwiec, the Minister of National Defence (Ministerial oversight of Military Intelligence), Jerzy Szmajdzinski, and the Head of Military Intelligence, Marek Dukaczewski. 175. In my analysis, the hierarchy for control of the Polish Military Information Services, or WSI, was chronically lacking in formal oversight and independent monitoring. As a result, the structure described here from 2002 to 2005 depended to a great extent on close relationships of trust and professional familiarity, both among the Polish principals and between the Poles and their American counterparts. Several of our sources characterised the bonds between these four individuals as being a combination of loyal personal allegiance (“we all serve one another”) and strong common notions of national duty (“… but first we serve the Republic of Poland”). 176. There was complete consensus on the part of our key senior sources that President Kwasniewski was the foremost national authority on the HVD programme. One military intelligence source told us: “Listen, Poland agreed from the top down … From the president – yes … to provide the CIA all it needed.” Asked 148. Between 2002 and 2004, the commercial company headed by Mr Kos shared responsibility for operating Szymany Airport with a military unit stationed on site. The airport had a mixed “civil-military” character, whereby aircraft registered as undertaking “military flights” were dealt with under special procedures. 149. See, for example, Fox News, “Polish Iraq Hostage Praises US Rescuers”, Warsaw, 10 June 2004; available at http://www.foxnews.com/ story/0,2933,122359,00.html. 150. The Italian press, for example, reported that Mr Kos was the “007 of Warsaw” and bore a “subcutaneous microchip” that allowed rescuers to trace the location at which he and his fellow hostages were being held; see La Repubblica, “Ostaggi liberati grazie a un microchip sottopelle”, 16 June 2004, available at http://www.repubblica.it/2004/f/sezioni/ politica/ostliberi2/chipinchiesta/chipinchiesta.html. On 15 June 2004 AP quoted Mr Kos himself as having said: “They [the kidnappers] thought I am an American co-operating with the CIA and I tried to explain that I am a Pole, that I was there to build houses.” 151. Letter to my inquiry from Justice Jaroslaw Horobiowski, Judge in the District Court for Wroclaw-Fabryczna (bankrupty and pre-insolvency proceedings), dated 7 November 2006, copy on file with the rapporteur. Mr Kos’ business affairs given as examples by Justice Horobiowski in this regard are “his role [with] Jedynka Wroclawska in Iraq, his mysterious kidnapping, then [the] strange circumstances of his rescuing, and his being director of the (former military) airport in Szymany”. Justice Horobiowski also states that the revelations about secret service connections were made by some former directors of the company. 152. In addition to the statements in court, trade unionists wrote an open letter stating that Mr Kos’ posting to Iraq may also have entailed some intelligence functions. See letter on behalf of Jedynka Wroclawska SA to Wroclaw Prosecutor Leszek Karpina, dated 26 April 2006, copy on file with the rapporteur. 36